Couldn't believe my ears. We just got a phone call from a recruitment consultant trying to head hunt for a European SEM Manager role for Google.

so says Teddie

A move which is a bit counter to client poaching claims of the past. That is, of course, unless Google wants to get better at poaching them.

Google has the ability to build and destroy many business models, but the more holistic your efforts are the less you need to worry.

Do you think you could start from scratch today? was one of the more interesting discussions I listened to at SEO Roadshow.

Mainly people were talking in terms of money, but I think the biggest assets for most people who are doing well in terms of SEO are their friendships and what they have learned, and you can't really unlearn or unfriend (unless you really try hard or have a freak accident).

Google is significantly harder to manipulate today than it was when I started. If I were to start from scratch today I think I would still be able to do well. Google would take a bit longer to manipulate than it used to, but I know so much more about marketing than I did back then. When I first started I was in the negative in terms of cash, and can't imagine that it would take me longer to find a profitable business model today. As a form of payment I also prefer links and friendships to cash, as they don't get taxed.

Sometimes I think about sorta just making this site archived and trying to change how & why I post and do things, but it is so easy to assume that what worked in the past will continue working in the future. I realize that is not true though.

My 3 week old free SEO tools update list already has over 10% the number of subscribers as my nearly 2 year old free newsletter does (and I give stuff away in nearly every newsletter).

Knowing what I paid to create some of the tools, and seeing some of the ad rates around the web, I am willing to bet most SEOs pay more for leads than I paid per subscriber to my free tools update list.

I do not like spending tons on advertising because I think viral marketing works so much better. It kinda feels insulting to think of how little money and effort went into creating some of those tools and how much time they can help save in the SEO process, especially when compared to how unproductively I have spent large portions of time, and now I am over the hill...26 years old. :(

Could you start from scratch today?
What would be the hardest bits?

My SEO pal Jim Boykin, of We Build Pages, just started an SEO blog.

Already he is talking about not needing links (never EVER thought I would hear Jim say that), and flink.

Whatever happened to flink? Sorta funny that Google got ahead by processing links better and now they do anything and everything possible to run away & hide their ball.

I was talking to NFFC at SEO Roadshow and he said for a long time AltaVista was king. Everyone was using it, and then overnight NOBODY searched at AltaVista. Some stated that AltaVista went so far that they took out many pages which had a blue line in them, while others questioned their paid inclusion relevancy. Search engines are screwed when they care more about how sites got to the top than the quality of the results. Just a few steps down that path and it can't be undone.

Google is sitting at $312 a share with an 87 billion dollar market cap just prior to their secondary public offering. It will be interesting to see if they learn from the mistakes AltaVista made. Recently hiring Louis Monier, AltaVista's founder, surely must help. Matt Cutts just admited that occassionally relevancy does improve when they remove some of the scoring factors. Bring back the flink!

Shortly I am off to SEO Roadshow.

I feel like I have been a bit lacking in insipration, etc. recently. Am thinking SEO Roadshow should be cool, plus I am stoked that The Search has been released just in time for good flight reading.

Web posts & threads:

• 301 redirects

• Yahoo! changing how they show link counts? I sure hope the new Site Explorer is API interface friendly and does not show rubbish link data or I may have just wasted a few thousand dollars programming Yahoo! SEO tools.
• Google Update Gilligan

CNN reports the remainder of the landmark trademark case between GEICO and Google was settled out of court:

GEICO, the No. 4 U.S. auto insurer and a unit of investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (Research), said a suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia was "resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties."

Google has allowed rival insurance companies to bid on the term GEICO to target pay per click ads. Some rivals also included the term in the ad copy. In the past a US district court judge ruled against allowing trademark terms in ad copy, but as of today I still see three insurance companies listed in AdWords when you search Google for [GEICO].

If you bid on competing company names recognize that it is viewed as being somewhat aggressive by many business owners, and some of them may:

• bid on your name

• spread hate messages about you or your company
• send bogus C&D or lawsuits your way
• try to undermine your business in other ways

The settlement terms were confidential. The article also stated that these settlement types usually involve money. No doubt this is huge for Google, as it further validates their business model.

Not sure if this will pan out, but some search marketer might do well to run an ad on Google triggered by GEICO today. :) Daventics got a bunch of link popularity by doing so in the past.